Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
by TurnMyGriefToGrace
Summary: Filling in the missing pieces from "Holidaze," like a remembrance of George, a stocking for Derek, requisite MerDer fluff, and how Christmas dinner came about. Festive one shot. MerDer, as always. Enjoy!


**Disclaimer: I don't own it. I just wish I did.**

**This is set during _Holidaze_. I just filled in the blanks, and wrote in things I would've liked to have seen. Such as: **

**1) ****A remembrance of George, since he wasn't mentioned once, and that bothered me. **

**2) ****A stocking for Derek.**

**3) ****Some small amount of MerDer fluff, since we didn't get much of that either.**

**4) ****How Christmas dinner came about (Krista Vernoff mentioned on twitter that Meredith and Derek decided to order in, but that scene got cut from the script).**

**So that's what these little prompts contain. Enjoy. :)**

**--**

**1., 2., & 3.**

_Have yourself a merry little Christmas,  
Let your heart be light  
From now on,  
our troubles will be out of sight_

Meredith decides to be proactive this Christmas. Mostly out of necessity, because George was dead, and Izzie had gone missing (again), and she needed some hope. So she wakes Derek up early one morning on a day off and recruits her husband to trek down into the basement and dig for boxes of decorations—ones that, thankfully, Izzie had been kind enough to label. _Mantle/fireplace. Tree. Tables. Windows. Porch lights_. It went on and on.

And on. Even Meredith didn't realize the amount of effort Izzie put into making Christmas nice for them. It makes her miss her friend even more.

"Where should we start?" Derek asks, standing next to her in the living room, still clad in his pajamas after being woken up earlier that morning.

Meredith bites her lip in contemplation, trying to come up with an answer. She wasn't exactly Martha Stewart when it came to festive holiday home décor. "I don't know. Fireplace, I guess…"

"Okay." Derek lugs the cardboard box over to the back wall of the living room then kneels down. "I'm gonna need a hammer and nails for these stockings. I'll be right back." He plants a kiss on top of her head then disappears back down into the basement.

There were perks to living with a boy. Free handiwork that she didn't need to do herself.

When Meredith begins rummaging through the box, it's like a punch in the gut when she pulls four stockings from inside.

_Doc. Mer. George. Izzie._

An unexpected sob escapes her and she runs her fingers over them, all adorned with felt and glue and glitter. It's hard for her, seeing these again. They remind her of the past. And how much things had changed over the past two years. Some for the better. Some for the unbelievably cruel worst.

Two were dead, the one that almost died was off somewhere else, seemingly unconcerned with what (and whom) she'd left behind, and only Meredith remained. It was like a bad soap opera, and she felt like laughing at the absurdity, but it was her reality, so all she could do was cry.

Derek finds his wife sitting on the floor with them sprawled around her, and he frowns. "Meredith." He wraps his arms around her and lets her grieve.

She always tries to keep it together, but there are times when she can't help herself, and the sorrow needs to come out. And it's a good thing; Derek appreciates that she lets herself be vulnerable around him, even when all those years of childhood trauma dictate doing otherwise. But the next time she looks up at him, she's smiling.

"I'm okay," she sniffles, as Derek wipes the tears from her cheeks.

"Okay," Derek whispers. He knows what it's like to feel that sadness—the enormity of what it is to lose a loved one. So whenever a wave hits her, he knows what to do. Because that's what marriage is. Being there. In good times and in bad.

The next day, Derek walks through the front door and glances into the living room, which had been transformed into one of those picturesque cutouts found in magazines, with the tree ($25.00 from Stan's Tree-A-Palooza, a tree lot near the hospital), decorations (from Izzie's multitude of boxes), wrapped presents (_from_ and _for_ both of them), and two stockings, hanging over the fireplace.

Her _Mer_ one (the one Izzie made for her).

And a _Derek_ one.

"Where'd this come from?" Derek wonders aloud when she joins him.

Meredith simply shrugs. "I made it for you."

"You made me a stocking?" he asks, resisting the urge to make a face. Again, she wasn't exactly the craft queen.

"I did," she smiles. Meredith wraps her arms around his neck and kisses him. "I got glitter everywhere, and I burned my finger with the hot glue gun, but yes. I made you a stocking."

Derek runs his fingers down her back and she arches into him. "You didn't have to do that," he says.

"Yes, I did. You're my husband. And we live here." (For now). "And we both need Christmas stockings," Meredith replies, playing with the curls on the back of his neck.

"Okay, then," Derek grins. "Thank you for my stocking."

"Just trying to be wifely," she explains amusedly.

He leans in to kiss her again, but the smell of burnt food is radiating from the kitchen and he looks to her curiously. "Is something burning?"

"Crap!" Meredith gasps, quickly turning around and running off into the kitchen. "I was trying to bake gingerbread cookies. See, this is what I get for trying to be wifely," she says as Derek pulls the batch of blackened cookies from the oven and sets them on the counter.

Derek manages for scrape one off the tray and laughs when it falls to ashes on the spatula. "It's the effort that counts, right?"

Meredith nudges her hip with his and smirks. "Mmhmm."

"What?"

"You don't get to make fun of me at Christmas," she says, her best attempt at an angry voice failed.

Derek wraps his arm around her and kisses Meredith's temple. "I wasn't. Look, I'll prove it." He bites into a flaky piece that was once the head of a gingerbread man and smiles, trying not to cough at the sooty taste on his tongue.

"Don't poison yourself to prove your love," Meredith giggles, handing him a napkin for him to spit the cookie into. "I already know you love me, and my shoddy baking skills."

He refuses the napkin and manages to swallow the whole thing. "It's really not that bad," he shrugs. "I bet the next batch is gonna be great."

Meredith slides the bowl of batter over to him and pats his arm. "Be husbandly and bake them for me then."

"You're not gonna help?" Derek chuckles, watching as she sits down at the counter and starts licking some of the batter off a spoon.

She shakes her head. "I made you a stocking. You can make the cookies."

"Betty Crocker would be proud of you," Derek teases, grabbing a fresh pan off the stovetop.

Meredith just smiles at him cheekily. There was a time when she never knew if she'd ever have a first Christmas with Derek. Or a first _anything_, for that matter. But somehow, here she was. Married to the love of her life. She really appreciated that this year.

**--**

**3 & 4.**

Meredith meets Derek outside the OR after his surgery with a panicked look in her eyes. She had on her _Holy-Crap-This- is- bad-Very- bad_ face and he looks at her curiously. "What's the matter?"

"We're screwed," she says, running a hand through her hair.

"Care to elaborate?" he asks.

She lets out a breath before beginning her freak out. "We have a crap load of people coming over tonight, and nothing is ready. Normally, I'd have Izzie to worry about this stuff, but because she isn't here, I have to do it," Meredith rambles. "It's not just the usuals this year. I mean, Bailey and…Mr. Bailey are coming, which is fine. But then we have my father. That's a lot of fathers and you know how I am with parents…"

"Mer—"

"And Combat Boot Barbie, that blonde army doctor that I've never even spoken to? Yeah, she's coming. Oh, and the Chief. My dad and the Chief in the same room…you and I will be mopping up the bloodbath. Then there's Mark and Lexie and his vapid narcissist daughter. And other people. And the two of us," Meredith finally finishes, giving Derek his window of opportunity to get a few words in.

"It's okay," he says. "We'll figure it out."

Meredith looks at him like he has three heads and knits her brow. "I don't cook," she reminds him. "You're the cook. But not even you have time to cook a Christmas dinner for thirteen people."

Derek pulls off his scrub cap and shrugs as the two walk down the hall. "We'll order in."

"It's Christmas day."

"There are places that'll do it," Derek replies calmly, much to Meredith's annoyance. His way of keeping composure when she was freaking out made her feel like a loser. "It'll cost a small fortune, but we'll have dinner."

True to his word, three hours and three hundred dollars later, a plethora of food is set up on the kitchen table. Ham and vegetables and biscuits and pies and…there's just a lot of food.

Meredith takes the tinfoil off the ham and crinkles it before tossing it into the trash. "We're frauds," she laughs. "Non-dinner making frauds."

"Well, we were nice enough to host, so I think they'll forgive us," Derek winks. He puts all of the vegetables into various bowls, then grabs the three salad-in-a-bags from the refrigerator and dumps them all into a large bowl. "And I think they'd rather we order in than have us attempt to cook it ourselves."

"By _us_, you mean _me_, right?" Meredith asks, raising her eyebrows at him playfully.

"Uh…yes," Derek admits. Denying it would only get him in trouble.

She tosses a dish towel at him. "Okay, I didn't grow up in a house with four sisters and a mom that baked pies on random Tuesdays for no reason," she giggles. "I had cereal. And Poptarts. And cold pizza, because I didn't care enough to use the microwave. You should be glad I haven't managed to burn the house down," Meredith points out.

He grins at her. She looks cute with oven mitts on as she carries the ham from the table to the stove to reheat it. "And for that, I'm grateful," Derek chuckles.

"What else? What else?" Meredith asks herself while scanning the kitchen. "Oh! Eggnog. How do I make that?"

"Want me to do it?" he asks.

She shakes her head adamantly. "I can do it. I just need the directions."

"Recipe book," Derek says, cocking his head to the shelf near the kitchen door. "Should be in there."

"'Kay," Meredith replies. If there's one thing she's good at doing in the kitchen (besides having sex with Derek on the countertops), it's making drinks. She mixes in all the ingredients, stirs the contents, pours herself a small glass.

"Hah! See? I'm not _completely_ incompetent," Meredith celebrates after taking a sip.

Derek raises her glass to his lips and smiles. Apparently, his wife really can make a kickass eggnog. "It's delicious," he compliments.

"Thank you."

"That's one non-fraud item. Eggnog. Our Christmas miracle," Derek grins.

Meredith pops a green bean into her mouth and sighs, amused by the entire situation. "If the night doesn't end in bloodshed or tears, then we can call it that."

He laughs. "Deal."

_Through the years  
We all will be together,  
If the Fates allow  
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough.  
And have yourself A merry little Christmas now._

**Hope you liked. And happy holidays! :) **


End file.
